A recent Business Week article on the telecommunications industry began: The days of plain old telephone service are over. Technological advances and the advent of competition have vastly changed the environment of our industry over the course of only a few years. But it is all just beginning. What is to come? [That may be the most asked and least answered question in the industry]. We know that more and more firms are entering the telecommunications industry with new computer and data applications [each claiming to be better than the one before.

A natural phenomenon of the increase in competitive alternatives and complex issues is a parallel increase in the number of industry consultants. IT managers and primarily CIO’s and CFO’s in many firms are turning to consulting firms for assistance in voice and data network design, equipment and software selection and general telecommunications system planning. It is clear that the consulting industry provides a useful and cost-effective service or, by economic definition, consultants would cease to exist. This article will discuss some issues worth considering prior to retaining a consultant for your organization.

It is only fair to say at the outset that, being a consultant myself, I have personal biases that will undoubtedly appear through this article. Some of the biases concern improper use and expectations of consultants by clients, and some concern regarding what I consider to be less than professional consulting practices. In any case, the reader must bear in mind my perspective -- I love my work, and I believe that many good consultants have a great deal to contribute to our industry.

So You Think You Need A Consultant?

Consultants are primarily problem solvers. Clients recognize that consultants often have far more experience resolving a wide range of telecommunications problems than do clients themselves. Many consulting firms are Vertical Market specialists by industry, [banking, education, retailing, etc.] or specialty [networking, equipment, applications.] and concentrate on establishing an in-depth experience specific to that interest.

Regardless of their industry or specialty, consultants are usually retained for the same basic reasons -- to play the same basic roles:

♦ To add or overlay specific capabilities to organizations without the depth of staff to accomplish certain technical objectives. It is often more cost-effective to employ a consultant to solve a one-time or very complex problem than to increase the full-time staff or thin the existing staff to accomplish the same tasks. In such situations, reinventing the wheel of specifically needed knowledge is often more costly in the long run than hiring that capability for a short period of time.

♦ To provide additional staff to organizations with the technical capability but not the manpower to devote to project requiring immediate attention. Communications managers are often so busy with the daily demands of their jobs that it is impossible to adequately plan an effective telecommunications strategy or implement plans on a timely basis. Consultants can serve as additional staff.

This type of consulting, while becoming more prevalent in firms with full-time IT professionals, has been common for some time in firms with part-time or no Telecom Managers. In such cases, consultants are better described as being in a facilities management role rather than a true consulting role.

♦ To be an objective analyst and problem-solver to organizations possessing the capability and manpower to solve the specific problem, but which are particularly concerned with getting an outside, objective viewpoint or a third-party approach to the problem.

This is perhaps the most common role of consultants in the telecommunications industry. The myriad alternatives now available within the industry require careful and objective analysis, if the best decisions are to be made. The dollars involved make covering all the basis prior to decision time absolutely imperative. Clients using consultants in this role often get a "surprise effect".

Consultants are sometimes able to take a creative approach to an old problem that has been an internal football for a long time. Or a consultant may simply be able to bring to situation new or overlooked information when investigating equipment, networking or Telecom planning alternatives. The proper use of a consultant in this role can clearly enhance the decision-making capability of managers.

♦ To lend credibility to an optimal decision or plan already derived by an in-house staff. Like it or not, telecommunications managers are not occupying a seat in the circle of power in most organizations. Using a consultant sometimes helps Telecom Managers break political and power barriers and gain the visibility and attention needed to institute new systems and policies. This use of consultants is legitimate as long as the consultant is not asked to be a “yes” man. Consequently, such use of a consultant might be risky since he/she may not agree in total with the plans of the Telecom Manager.

In either a “problem-solver”, “outside opinion”, or “lending credibility” mode, the consultant can be an extremely valuable addition to the client staff provided that:

The consultant and client work closely together through the project. The resulting recommendations are implemented at the end of the study.

Choosing a consultant is both a difficult and important task. The remainder of this article will provide information that should help you determine some important selection criteria for your needs, and enable you to work more effectively with the chosen consultant.

Consulting firms tend to come in three basic sizes. First is the one person firm. In our business, this is often an ex-telephone company employee, or sometimes is a former telecommunications manager. The firm may employ some administrative help, but even this is often part-time.

The consultant in this case is probably entrepreneurial in nature and usually dedicated to his work since his livelihood both now and in the future is directly linked to the quality of the work produced. Such a person may or may not have limited resources depending on how experienced and well-connected he/she is in the industry. Most small consulting firms are able to tap alternatives resources when specialized needs or work overloads occur.

A manager in the market for a consultant must take care to check the credentials and resources of the one-person firm, particularly if the project requires vast information and technical resources or is likely to require a large amount of manpower.

The second size firm may have several principals and some technical staff, but by all modern definitions, would still be considered a very small firm. More people resources are immediately available in this size firm, and to the prospective client, that is of obvious benefit. In both the “one” and “several” person firms, the client is likely to work with the same people who made the proposal to him.

The third type of consulting firm tends to be much larger and is often capable for bringing vast human and technical resources to bear on a particular project. In recent years, several of the large management consulting firms and large accounting firms have begun a telecommunications consulting arm.

The advantage of retaining such a firm can be great, especially if the project to be undertaken is extraordinarily large or complex. The same rules apply here however. Check out the references cited in the proposal and, in this case, determine who will be working on your project since it may not be the same individuals that make the proposal.

There are no set rules regarding the size of consulting firms to use. Part of the decision must rest with the personal philosophy of the person or group making the decision. The resources required by the project at hand and the researched track record of the consultants interviewed, however, should be the key factors in the decision.

The Consultants’ Style

Consultants can be differentiated by style as well as by the size firm from which they come. The two basic styles employed by professional consultants are sometimes called “the expert approach” and the “process” or “Educative” approach.

At one extreme is the expert Consultant that sells answers. He/she goes away with the problem and returns with the solution [hopefully]. Moving right on the continuum, the consultant’s style changes to a teaching approach. The client is more involved in the progress of a project and learns from the knowledge and experience of the consultant. There are some obvious overlaps in the two types, and consultants tend to be neither complete “experts” nor completely “Educative” in style.

A Bias: Telecommunications unfortunately lends itself to “expert” consulting. For years, managers have listened to the experts from Telco’s and now, with the industry having become more complex, the temptation is often to buy needed answers from expert consultants.

Knowles’ Opinion: Don’t just buy answers, buy education. Look for consultants willing to allow you to peer into their black boxes and set a personal goal to emerge from a consulting engagement a more informed and independent communications manager.

The far right end of the continuum is labeled “servant”. This identifies the extreme case in which a consultant is a “YES” man. This is not a professional consultant, but a person, who is accustomed to saying what he/she believes the client wants to hear, or in the worst case scenario, has a conflict of interest that makes him or her servant to a vendor. Such persons should be avoided at all costs, and a thorough check of track records will usually weed out such individuals.

Interview More Than One Consultant:

Whether you are making an equipment decision or a consultant decision, do your homework. Do not make up your mind until you have thoroughly investigated the alternatives. Hiring a consultant is a decision you may have to live with for some time. Make sure the person or firm you retain will prove to be an asset.

If, however, you have already decided which firm to use, don’t solicit alternative proposals simply to persuade superiors [or yourself] that you have investigated alternatives. Such proposal solicitations are not fair to consultants [or vendors -- the same rules apply to equipment decisions] or your firm. Think about it.

Check Out the Consultants Credentials

Do not be overly impressed with a consultant’s client list unless it is comprehensive and you are allowed to select some references at random. Most consultants will not give out client lists until the prospective client has been qualified as seriously interested in consultant’s services. Once you are qualified as seriously interested, however, you must be allowed to contact previous client for references. Contact several. In checking a consultants credentials ask the key question: If you had it to do over again would you hire “xyz” consultant or consulting firm again? The answer to this question will tell you what to do.

Most consultants charge either on a fixed fee for a project, or on a daily fee or on an hourly basis. Daily fees range from $800 per day plus expenses to more than $2,000 per day for the most celebrated types. Although the daily rates quoted by most consultants may at first though seem high, in fact they are not outrageous at all. The daily fee times five days a week times 52 weeks does not equal a consultant’s annual salary. Consultants have overhead and salaries and benefits to pay just as all other businesses do. Moreover, much time is spent preparing proposals, speeches, writing articles, and marketing, traveling and even sweeping out the office from which no compensation is received. On an hourly basis the going rate in August 2012 is in the range of $175.00 to as much as $275.00 per hour.

A few consultants will quote a fixed fee to complete a project and guarantee that fee. This is not uncommon in situations that are very familiar to the consultant - tackling a problem that has been tackled many times before. Understand though, this is risky from a consultant’s point of view since organizational or political problems within the client’s firm may delay a project or create a significant amount of extra work. At the onset of a project, the client sometimes does not know what is totally involved in the technical scope of a project and the consultant does not know what the specific organizational needs or politics are.

Whichever method of payment is used, be careful when negotiating a contract with a consultant to be sure a common understanding exists concerning charges for both travel and non-travel expenses, and if you’ve hired an expert from afar, how travel time will be charged. The best consultant-client relationship is one that entails no surprises on either part when invoice times come around.

Getting the Most for Your Money

A key word when using a consultant’s service is accountability. Specific objectives should be established and time periods should be set and adhered to. Hold the consultant accountable for results for the money he or she is paid.

Try not to use consultants to accomplish work that could be done with reasonable ease using internal resources. Equipment inventories are good examples. All Telecom Managers should make an independent equipment inventory, reconcile that inventory with the Telco bills, and then establish a method of keeping the inventory up to date. Paying a consultant several hundred dollars a day to count telephones and heads is an expensive approach to the task.

In most cases, the Telecom Manager would come out ahead by working with a Telco representative to learn the appropriate USOC Codes and inventory reconciliation procedures or by hiring a consultant to teach him or her procedures.

The Telecom Manager of his staff will have learned a new and necessary skill and hundreds of dollars will have been saved in consultant fees [and possibly Telecom misbillings].

Consultants Have Rights Too!

In your quest for ways to save your organization dollars, don’t become too demanding for problem solutions during the consultant’s proposal stage. Certainly the consultant must provide some information concerning his/her approach to the problem during the proposal phase. But how much can you justifiably learn from a consultant before you must pay?

Where does consultant marketing end and consulting for a fee begin? It’s a dilemma consultants often face, and the prospective clients should try not to take advantage.

Most consultants work hard and spend time and money to prepare proposals. Once a proposal is submitted, the consultant often never hears from the prospective client again [unless, of course, he gets the job. As a professional once your decision is made, let the consulting firms not selected know of that decision. It saves a lot of anxiety, and is a deeply appreciated courtesy.

Don’t be too quick to subscribe to the “a consultant is anyone out of work” theory or the “all consultants are on the take” theory. The consulting industry certainly has its bad applies, but it also claims many competent and dedicated professionals.

A recent meeting of professional management consultants recognizes credibility and public image as the major concerns of small consulting firms. Unfortunately, skepticism is a price one pays for choosing to be a consultant. My simple recommendation: Keep an open mind until you have evaluated the facts -- you might be pleasantly surprised.

There are no simple rules for deciding exactly when consultants should be used, which type to retain, or how to pay them. It very much depends on the task to be accomplished, the funds available to pay a consultant, organizational politics and personal preference. Your task as an IT Director, CIO of CFO is 1) to determine the legitimate Telecom needs of your organization and 2) to meet those needs costeffectively.

Key points to consider when evaluating a consultant or consulting firm:

• Experience in the industry.• Delivers a quality written proposal.• Positive vendor relationships. (Contact the vice president of sales from vendor firms you are considering. Ask the question: Does your firm have experience working with “xyz” consultant or consulting firm? If we were to hire “xyz” consulting firm would you be willing to work with them?)• Ask who would be doing the actual consulting work. Is it the “front man” who only sells the project or is it someone else in the organization?• The consultant should be prepared (before you retain them) to deliver a project schedule (MS Project) detailing the tasks, timeframes and overall project cost on a task by task basis.• The consulting firm must carry an Errors and Omissions insurance policy in the amount of at least $1,000,000. Think about it: If the project “goes south” the first thing your legal counsel will go after is the consultant. Remember you took the consultant’s advice on the design of the system and or the vendor(s) he or she recommended.• Ask for samples of both the financial analysis and recommendations made by the consultant from similar consulting engagements.• Ask the​ consultant for a list of the last ten (10) projects the consultants did.Take note of too many recommendations of the same system and the same vendor. If the consultant or consulting firm recommends the same system and vendor firm you are wasting your time and money hiring that consultant.• The consultant should provide at no expense to you as the client weekly project status reports.• Ask the consultant to sign a document declaring that the only money the consultant will receive will be from you. You do not want to hire a consultant that takes “payoffs” for recommending a particular system and vendor. After all any money the consultant receives from anyone other than you is illegal and dishonest. IT IS YOUR MONEY THE VENDOR IS PAYING TO THE CONSULTANT!• The honest and competent consultant should be willing to guarantee in writing as CSD does with every consulting project the following for a welldefined engagement:

Project Guarantee: Communications Sales Dynamics, Inc. guarantees the total consulting project outlined in this agreement. Should the “Client” at the completion of the project find the work performed by CSD was unsatisfactory in any way then any or the entire fee for the consulting services will be returned to the “Client.”

Please keep in mind that your future with the company depends on the success or failure of the project. If you choose the wrong consulting firm (usually on price) your career could be seriously impacted. Remember you do not want or need any SURPRISES.

For Additional Information, Or To Schedule a No Cost Appointment or Obligation To Discuss Your Voice and Data Requirements, Please Contact Tony Knowles if you have any questions or would like to learn more.​